I have a brilliant scenario for a strategy game: It is the year 2018. Europe is divided into a big industrial part, and a smaller part that lives of financial slavery, a practice widely detested by the rest of Europe and in danger of being abolished by law. So Johnny Reb decides to secede, but the other half of Europe erects trade barriers to not let products of the financial slavery in. Tempers flare, the first shots get fired, and shortly after the European War of Secession has started.

Civil War II : European War of Secession is brought to you by The Creative Assembly, makers of the Total War series. Control either the secessionist rebels, or one of the states remaining in the "ever closer union". First game to have sapper units, able to blow up the tunnel connecting the rebel territory to the rest of Europe. Engage in diplomacy as the rebels to exploit the "special relationship", or you'll be crushed by the industrially advanced Union.

Sadly I don't know where my poor country will end up in that civil war given that we are ideologically aligned and financially dependent on the Union but geographically totally at the mercy of the secessionists.

I fear we are destined to play the role of the Indian Territory, now known as Oklahoma. Oklahoma was wracked with destruction and ruin during the civil with every able bodied man fighting for one side or the other and a good many fighting for both.

As for Cameron's speech, my idea is that it is quite a clever move aimed at frustrating federalists over the next few years. The latter will certainly try to exploit the current financial difficulties to press for closer union, and what Cameron has done is to say "we're watching you".

Then again, it is probably mainly aimed at stemming the drift to UKIP in the British electorate. But there's no reason it can't have multiple motivations.

I take it that this post has something to do with Cameron's speech but I am too ignorant and ill informed about european politics to make heads or tails of it.

(Unrelated, but I believe that expression is an almost uniquely american way of saying it, and the british way would be "make head or tail of it", which makes sense as animals rarely have more than one head or tail.)

We need more EU skepticism. I wish we never ever got on this path of a Pan-European (and some bits of Asia too) "super" (hah!) power. We should have sticked with the EEG, a purely economical union (which my country entered as a founding member).

In stead, right now we have a megalomanical civil servant black hole in Brussels which costs billions and does useful things like decide the mimimum size of cucumbers and curvature of bananas.

A currency (the EURO) which costs us (the Dutch) about 10% of our income when introduced, because of lousy and totally unreal exchange rates. The Guilder was a very strong currency at the time (OK, it was riding on the waves of the Deutsch Mark, but still).

Also we have to endure the maniacal need to include every country in Europe and beyond, which will eventually be our downfall (since it also costs BILLIONS). To fund these things i suspect a European tax will be a reality soon...